Blow-molded plastic bottles can be useful in containing hot-filled beverages and foods. The present disclosure relates particularly to a hot-filled plastic bottle that has increased flexibility through thinner wall thickness, yet retains a sidewall resistance to ovalization and other distortion that is at least as great as comparable bottles.
Garver et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,622, discloses a bottle made of PET that is expressly configured for hot filled applications. The bottle's body sidewall is rigidized against radial and longitudinal vacuum distortion so that paper labels can be applied to the bottle. The rigidized sidewall is achieved by providing a plurality of radially inward, concave ring segments which are spaced apart from one another and separated from one another by cylindrically shaped flats or land segments. In addition, the amorphous threaded mouth of the bottle is rigidized by gussets molded into the bottle at the junction of the neck and shoulder portion of the bottle to resist deformation when the bottle is capped. To accommodate the post capping vacuum, a bulbous vacuum deformation area is provided in the shoulder adjacent the bottle neck, a plurality of vacuum deformation panels are provided in a frusto-conical portion of the shoulder, and a further vacuum deformation panel is provided in the base. As a result, any post capping vacuum is confined to the specifically designated areas of the bottle and the sidewall remains undistorted. The lack of post capping sidewall distortion is disclosed to be the result of a critical sizing of the ring segments relative to the land segments in combination, to some extent, with the crystallinity level, which is disclosed to be greater than 30%. Other bottles made of PET that have sidewall including spaced ring segments designed to rigidize the sidewall are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,923,334; 6,929,139 and 7,051,890.
Despite the various features and benefits of the structures of the forgoing and other similar disclosures, there remains a need for hot-fillable bottle made of plastic that has a price advantage achieved through a thinner wall thickness, yet retains a resistance to sidewall ovalization and other unwanted deformation that is at least as great as comparable bottles.